DS Last one picked in PE

[GoldenLightNights]

AIBU to contact the teacher with regards to this:

DS is 9, he’s a wonderful child, great at all things science and maths related but not so much at sports. He plays football outside of school for one of the lower ability teams and sort of enjoys it, he isn’t forced to play or anything like that.

Anyway today at school he had PE, we’ve never had any issues before but today for some reason the teacher let two boys pick teams and my son was the last to be picked. He is quite upset especially as one of the boys doing the picking is a close friend.
Anyway I find the idea of letting other children pick teams horrendous and if not my son some child will be picked last. I actually thought this method of choosing teams was done away with years ago!
I want to contact the teacher to ask if he would consider adopting a new approach to team selection. My husband says I’m jumping the gun and to wait to see if it happens again…… so what do you think?
He was properly upset this evening 😢

@SweetJasmine17 who said anything about gossip, bullying? What on earth are you talking about? It's a kids PE class ffs. People need to get a bloody grip.

Very striking contrast on this thread between the thoughtful, articulate contributions of those who understand the damage done by this sort of thing...

And the aggressive, rather badly written comments of the "suck it up" brigade.

Sadly PE teachers appear to be drawn mainly from the latter camp.

I remember a woman who was invited on MNet to talk about women and girls' participation in sport being sidelined in favour of men's and boys sport.
While I and others agreed that that is an issue we also pointed out that there are still fundamental flaws in how PE is taught to children, especially girls. Some people did get a bit overly negative but no-one went for the ad hominim attacks. Yet some people thought we had been horrible to her.
I thought the majority of criticism was thoughtfull and constructive but no. It seems one person's constructive criticism is another person's personal attack!

[quote Mojoj]@SweetJasmine17 who said anything about gossip, bullying? What on earth are you talking about? It's a kids PE class ffs. People need to get a bloody grip.[/quote]

It's all part of resilience. You don't object to that surer, how Elise can people be well adjusted without being bullied or made to feel bad in school?

No need for the faux naivety but I don't think well here a response to that one. And most importantly, if it was your hold you wouldn't be telling PE teachers to crack on with it, you'd advocate for your hold like a decent parent.

Or why I let myself become an annoying people person with reduced boundaries when I was in a situation when people actually tolerated me for once rather than having hostile indifference as being the best reaction.
Good boundaries and how to determine what an equal friendship actually looks like has taken me decades.

But hey it's all resiliance and character building and by that I must have a gigantic fucking character by now.

You need to toughen up your son. It's part of life I'm afraid his gonna struggle if you think this an issue. Tell him to get on with with it and do t be a snowflake

I would try and speak to your son about it and work towards building his resilience up.

Worse things are going to happen in his life. Way worse. Grief, illness, job loss, debt, unable to pay for essentials, relationship breakdowns. Possibly addiction, violence, pregnancy losses etc.

Have you spoken to him about how to deal with these things? Because they're going to happen.

Another one here who always got picked last, presumably just by virtue of me being a shortarse even though I was very good at individual sports, definitely put me off team sports for life and probably effected my general confidence permanently

@D0lphine

I would try and speak to your son about it and work towards building his resilience up.

Worse things are going to happen in his life. Way worse. Grief, illness, job loss, debt, unable to pay for essentials, relationship breakdowns. Possibly addiction, violence, pregnancy losses etc.

Have you spoken to him about how to deal with these things? Because they're going to happen.

Fantastic attitude to life 👏 You're going to suffer in life so I'll allow your teachers to treat you like shit now as a teachable moment. No thanks!!

I went to an all girls secondary school and was always picked last. It's nothing to do with sports ability, it's a popularity contest and it's a backwards way of doing things. I was a very pretty teenager and modelling at 14, that coupled with the fact I was quite introverted made it easy for the other girls to make sure I knew I wasn't well liked. Now I can see it for what it was, plain jealousy.

@collieresponder88

You need to toughen up your son. It's part of life I'm afraid his gonna struggle if you think this an issue. Tell him to get on with with it and do t be a snowflake

But this isn't part of life. As people have pointed out, this sort of behaviour/process is not generally tolerated in the workplace.

*You're going to suffer in life so I'll allow your teachers to treat you like shit now as a teachable moment.
No thank*s!!

Well I think small disappointments can be good practice and teaching for dealing with life's inevitable sufferings.

If he deals with this with confidence and a sense of perspective and inner strength. He can take that forward in life. He will learn to weather the storms, knowing that it's ok and the shit situation will pass.

On the other hand, If mum swoops in and makes everything just fine, he will expect women in his life to do this when the going gets tough.

@D0lphine

*You're going to suffer in life so I'll allow your teachers to treat you like shit now as a teachable moment. No thank*s!!

Well I think small disappointments can be good practice and teaching for dealing with life's inevitable sufferings.

If he deals with this with confidence and a sense of perspective and inner strength. He can take that forward in life. He will learn to weather the storms, knowing that it's ok and the shit situation will pass.

On the other hand, If mum swoops in and makes everything just fine, he will expect women in his life to do this when the going gets tough.

There’s plenty of other situations where dc can learn this

Team picking in sports doesn’t have to be one

@Kanaloa so uou can say one child is hurt by something you don't agree with but the child left standing at the end when partners are picked which is also being left out by every child is different , its clearly not
I said of it happens every week its not right , but it has happened once in this case and may not happen again or it may be different people who choose next time so that most end ip being picked last .
Your the one saying the child left when pairs picked is not left upset when that is simply not true either, I have also known that child and they were also upset that they were never picked as a partner and always left

@MarshaBradyo

I actually think this is the perfect situation to learn.

It feels tough. It's a bit cringe for them. But essentially it doesn't matter.

Perfect to practice. As opposed to getting to something that really does matter, like a death, and not knowing how to cope.

Preparing kids for life's sorrows is so important. One of the most important things. We do them a disservice if we pretend the world isn't as tough as it is.

Well. This was me, every time. And I'm a terrible example of a human so I reckon intervention could be in order

I am surprised to find out that it seems to be not common anymore

[quote D0lphine]@MarshaBradyo

I actually think this is the perfect situation to learn.

It feels tough. It's a bit cringe for them. But essentially it doesn't matter.

Perfect to practice. As opposed to getting to something that really does matter, like a death, and not knowing how to cope.

Preparing kids for life's sorrows is so important. One of the most important things. We do them a disservice if we pretend the world isn't as tough as it is. [/quote]
I disagree.

Plenty of other ways like losing a match, or a race, or not getting in top team.

Schools don’t need to set up this approach as the downsides outweigh the benefit. Which is why it’s not considered good practise anymore. The school should be more up to date.

@collieresponder88

You need to toughen up your son. It's part of life I'm afraid his gonna struggle if you think this an issue. Tell him to get on with with it and do t be a snowflake

A perfect example of what you wrote, right here, @CocoPrivileges!

@MarshaBradyo

I disagree.

Mum swooping in and making it all ok isn't the answer. It makes the child look to other people (women) to sort their problems out. Rather than to be ok with the disappointment themselves, get through it and move on. Gives them confidence when you teach them properly how to deal with it. So when they're left out of something again (and it will happen!!) they know how to deal with it.

Outdated and lazy practice by the teacher. Honestly if time is short line the kids up and go down the line going, “1, 2, 1, 2”. Two teams done.

We have a real problem in this country of people not being active enough. This has massive impacts on health. One of the best things we can do is to encourage a love of sport at school. All poor practice like this (encourages is for people to give up as soon as they can.

[quote D0lphine]@MarshaBradyo

I disagree.

Mum swooping in and making it all ok isn't the answer. It makes the child look to other people (women) to sort their problems out. Rather than to be ok with the disappointment themselves, get through it and move on. Gives them confidence when you teach them properly how to deal with it. So when they're left out of something again (and it will happen!!) they know how to deal with it. [/quote]
I’d prefer schools to get on board with up to date approaches and not out-dated ones.

I don’t often contact the school over stuff in this way, haven’t had the need really, but dh will usually do it or together so I find the ‘mum swooping’ part a bit clichéd

@MelCat

Outdated and lazy practice by the teacher. Honestly if time is short line the kids up and go down the line going, “1, 2, 1, 2”. Two teams done.

We have a real problem in this country of people not being active enough. This has massive impacts on health. One of the best things we can do is to encourage a love of sport at school. All poor practice like this (encourages is for people to give up as soon as they can.

Yep agree

@MarshaBradyo

But here it's the mum asking the question. So it's not cliche it's the actual person asking the question.

Irrespective we're not here to solve kids problems (other than when they're very very little).

We're here to help them navigate tricky situations. To know what to do when something not very nice happens. So when they're older they can take care of themselves and their mental health.

[quote D0lphine]@MarshaBradyo

But here it's the mum asking the question. So it's not cliche it's the actual person asking the question.

Irrespective we're not here to solve kids problems (other than when they're very very little).

We're here to help them navigate tricky situations. To know what to do when something not very nice happens. So when they're older they can take care of themselves and their mental health. [/quote]
And schools are meant to follow latest practise.

So if they don’t someone might ask about it.

Obviously not everyone cares, as you don’t, but it doesn’t make it the right way for the school to approach it.